Coventry & Warwickshire Business Support Review

Question: How can Coventry & Warwickshire Better Support local SMEs to grow?

Coventry and Warwickshire councils wanted to better understand the range of business support services needed to help local businesses grow. The local Growth Hub was developing its portfolio of support for SMEs and European funding programme priorities were being agreed. The area needed to develop an evidence-backed set of priorities for property, finance, advice and start-up support targeting critical business sectors and locations.

Solution: Mapping, data and consultation

The Regeneris team generated a map of business support services and business premises already available for SMEs. We analysed data on potential levels of demand for support services and assessed evidence on the impacts and achievements of current schemes in the area. We also consulted widely with businesses to better understand their support needs and drew on our wider expertise in business support, growth hubs and EU funding to identify priorities for investment and delivery lessons on how to make a success of new service roll-out.

Impact: New priorities for business support services

We made a wide-ranging series of recommendations to partners which highlighted where efficiencies could be secured, duplication avoided and quality driven up. Our advice was all aimed at ensuring a better fit with businesses’ growth needs and aspirations and our findings were used by Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council to agree on priorities for European investments through to 2020.

Client:

Warwickshire County Council & Coventry City Council

Services:

Project Manager:

SECTORS

Regeneris has in-depth knowledge and in-house expertise across the factors which drive economic performance. We understand local, regional and national priorities and we can help clients to navigate the challenges faced by businesses and places wanting to secure growth.